The national lottery organization of Brazil has begun a pilot program to sell its games online.

Caixa Econômica Federal is offering tickets for its Mega-Sena game for sale on the internet. The move is allowed by rules recently published in the official government journal, reports Gambling Compliance.

Caixa is a public bank, which operates the national lottery. Sales reached BRL8.8 billion—about $5.6 billion—in 2010.

Online purchase of Mega-Sena is available to registered users of the Caixa internet banking service who are at least 18 years old. Players may only spend a maximum of BRL100 per day. Tickets are sold for six hours each afternoon.

Jorge Hereda, president of Caixa, said, “We have high expectations for this method of selling our lotteries.”

Only Mega-Sena tickets are currently available online, but Caixa intends to use the pilot program to learn how to best present all of its games online eventually.

By GGB Staff

Staff writers for Global Gaming Business magazine. Las Vegas, Nevada.